by Jo Goodman
Sophie's eyes strayed from the library doors as she gave East her full attention. "I know how clever you are," she said. "And it is much more romantic to steal kisses than jewelry." To prove her point, she leaned toward him and brushed his lips with hers. "There. Do you see? That was—"
What Eastlyn did next simply robbed her of speech. His mouth slanted across hers, and the steady pressure of it pushed her back into the curve of the couch. Her arms slipped around his neck, and she drew him down on top of her. Her fingers threaded in his thick chestnut hair, tugging lightly. She arched under him, stirring restlessly as the kiss deepened. He sucked on her tongue and lips, and she felt her breasts swell above the empire waist of her gown. The weight of him was like a tender tether, securing her when she thought she might simply float away.
It was the opening of the doors to the gallery that parted them. East's head came up over the edge of the couch, and he spied Lady Northam stepping into the room. Sophie's flushed features appeared over the same curve a moment later. She was grateful when Elizabeth politely averted her eyes as she passed them on her way to the library, though she doubted North's wife missed East's devilish grin or her own squeal of surprise and protest as she was pushed back onto the cushion.
The line of Sophie's mouth flattened stubbornly when East tried to nudge another kiss from her. Barely moving her lips, she whispered, "It hardly seems fair that Lady Northam is allowed to assist in catching a thief and I am relegated to kissing one."
"How do you know that is what she is about?"
"Because you let her pass, and you told me your unremarkable task this evening was to keep anyone from the library who should not be there."
"So I did." Sighing, he sat up and helped Sophie do the same. He made his cravat presentable again while she tucked several wayward strands of hair behind her ears and straightened the low-cut neckline of her gown. "Did you mind lending your lips in the service of your country?"
The glance Sophie darted in East's direction was patently suspicious. "In the service of my country? That is puffing the thing up a bit, don't you think?"
East shrugged, his features neutrally set.
Sophie wondered what she could believe and decided it did not matter. "I would lend my lips to you in service of the very devil." She expected that he would give her his disarming, reckless smile, but he did not. Instead, his eyes darkened, and the cast of his features became serious. "Why did you never tell me, Sophie? There were so many opportunities when you might have said something."
They were no longer talking about Lady Northam, the Gentleman Thief, or Sophie's service to the Crown. The change in subject gave her a small start, and she blinked widely at East before she found her voice. "You are speaking of our introduction, are you not?"
He nodded. "It was not at the Stanhope recital."
"No."
"I was your partner in the waltz at Almack's. Your first waltz."
"Yes. It was a favor to one of the patronesses, I believe, for there was no reason for you to seek me out otherwise, and certainly there was no reason that you should remember me. I could not have attracted your notice without someone prompting you, nor held your notice much beyond the moment."
East wished he could have said she was wrong, but the truth was he didn't know. Even now, his recollection of that evening was vague. "My head ached abominably," he said quietly. "I know I was almost desperate to leave the assembly, but I was reminded quite forcefully of promises I had made to partner several young ladies in their first waltz."
Sophie nodded. "You danced with Miss Caruthers and both of the Miss Vincents."
"The twins?"
"Yes."
"Ah. So that is why it was interminable. There were two of them."
Sophie's smile was faint, even a bit rueful. "It must have seemed so to you, but I cannot help thinking that they might have wished it had gone on far longer. I know it was that way for me."
"Was I unkind just now, Sophie? I did not mean to be."
"No. It is merely that for you it was a duty, and for us it was a pleasure. I suppose I am feeling a little sorry for all of us who trip so easily over our hearts, even when we manage not to do the same with our feet."
"It was a pleasure to dance with you," he said. "Never think it was otherwise. My memory may be indistinct, but it is rarely false. I watched you arrive this evening, saw you enter the ballroom on the arm of your aunt, and something about that moment struck me as familiar. It was as if the scene had been played out before me at some other time. You arrived at Almack's with Lady Dunsmore, didn't you?"
"Yes. Harold followed later."
"And you stood a moment at the entrance to the hall, almost on the brink of retreat."
"I wished that I might have run," she said. "I was paralyzed, though, and Abigail pulled me along, much as my aunt did tonight."
East nodded. "You wore a similar color."
"Yes." A small crease appeared between her eyebrows. When she had chosen her gown for this evening, she had not consciously given thought to her encounter with East at Almack's. Now she had to wonder if it were not at the back of her mind all along. Had she done it to provoke him to arrive at this memory? "I did not wittingly set out to make you remember," she said. "But perhaps it was more important to me than I realized."
"You might have simply told me."
"The awkwardness of saying the whole of it stayed my tongue."
"You must have thought me cruel to have made no mention of that meeting."
"Not cruel," she said. "Never that. It did not occur to me in the beginning that you had truly forgotten it, but I thought you were guilty of nothing save trying to spare my feelings. I am certain I behaved foolishly."
He studied her solemnly set features. "You might have acquitted me of being purposely cruel," he said, "but I can recall several times that you made a good effort to get a little of your own back."
Sophie's heart-shaped face was all angelic innocence. "Oh?"
"You told me in the garden at Bowden Street that I was outside your notice."
"Oh."
"I believe I wondered if you would come to the park if you knew I would be there. You were quite firm in your dismissal of that notion, even when I tempted you with the fact that I might be driving a new barouche."
Sophie's laughter was cut short as the door to the gallery opened suddenly and Northam stepped inside. He did not spare a glance for her, but gave his direct attention to East.
"Is she there?" he asked. At Eastlyn's affirmative nod, some of the tension seeped from North's rigid stance. "And her friend?"
"I most sincerely hope so."
Northam thanked East, smiled politely at Sophie, then strode off in the direction of the library.
Sophie watched him go, sighing as he disappeared into the ambassador's inner sanctum. "The Gentleman Thief is wretchedly unlucky this evening if he means to go in there."
East caught Sophie's chin with his fingertip and directed her eyes back to his. "I do not care so much as this"—he snapped his fingers—"for the Gentleman. I am more curious about the tale you wove for me at Clovelly. You asked me frankly when I thought we had first met. It must have given you considerable pause when I said it was at Lady Stanhope's."
"Actually," Sophie said dryly, "you said it was at Lady Stafford's. I was left with the rather sad fact that you did not even recollect the particulars of our second introduction. Perhaps it is the fault of my pride, but I could not bring myself to tell you about that other time."
"When you told me Lady Dunsmore had cautioned you to behave circumspectly at the recital, was that true?"
"Yes. She did not want me to repeat my pathetic performance at Almack's."
"But that was so long in the past."
She shrugged lightly. "She remembered it well enough. As I did."
East slowly released a measured breath. "It seems impossible to me that I could have forgotten."
"Perhaps it is just as well. It could have been no more
favorable an impression than the one I made with you at the recital."
East took Sophie's hands in his. "Do you know what I did not tell Mrs. Sawyer about that encounter?"
Sophie was not at all certain she wanted to hear. He had been rather blunt in cataloguing her deficiencies to his mistress. What manner of things had he considered too appalling to share even with her? "I am not sure that—"
East did not allow her to finish. "I did not tell her about your splendid eyes," he said gently. "Or that your innocence was rather more responsibility than I wanted. I said nothing to her about the radiance of your smile each time you cast it about in any direction but mine. I did not mention that your mouth looked perfectly delicious when it was guarding your tongue, or that even the most insipid conversation could not conceal the intelligence in your expression."
He briefly touched one finger to her lips when she would have spoken. "You might think it is because she was a jealous woman that I did not say any of these things, and there would be some truth to that; yet it does not explain the whole. There are some things a man cannot properly admit to himself, even if he would be vastly improved by the knowledge. In this particular case, I was perhaps guilty of looking rather too hard to find something disagreeable."
Sophie took East's hand in hers. "Too hard?" she asked. "I doubt that. There was much that was disagreeable, and I should consider you foolish indeed if you had ignored all of it for a pair of splendid eyes. Your life would be made hell if you wed me because you thought you could tolerate an impoverished wit in exchange for a radiant smile. You would be bored in a sennight." She paused a beat and added slyly, "Even sooner if I were not possessed of a perfectly delicious mouth."
She offered that mouth now, and East was not proof against it. The kiss lingered sweetly, and gradually they found themselves once more stretched out on the narrow couch. When the doors to the library opened sometime later, and Northam and Elizabeth emerged, East merely raised one hand above the back of the couch and waved them on.
* * *
Lady Gilbert gave Sophie the benefit of her careful appraisal, looking pointedly for anything that was not just as it should be. "He took some pains not to muss your gown, I see," she said sternly. "You must not let his effort be in vain. You would do well not to look so satisfied. It cannot help but make people think there was more to your absence than a hem in need of repairing."
"I doubt I was missed at all," Sophie said. Still, she accepted her aunt's censure and schooled her features into an expression of polite interest that was wholly lacking the animation of a moment ago. There was little she could do, however, about her warmly flushed cheeks except to hide them behind her fan.
She knew what her aunt thought had taken place elsewhere in the ambassador's residence, and Sophie did not discourage her from thinking it. Lady Gilbert would have been decidedly disappointed if she knew that except for some long, passionately felt kisses, Eastlyn had behaved with singular propriety. Sophie had tried to tempt him with more, but he had led her from the couch to the center of the gallery, and at the first measures of another waltz he had taken her into his arms and swept her across the floor.
She had fallen in love with him again, this time with the clarity of knowing that his confidence was earned, that his smile was never misplaced, and that his character was as fine and strong as tempered steel. He danced with her as if he were making love, guiding her with a touch, holding her steady with the strength of his glance. She was made breathless by a succession of turns in just the same manner as when he kissed her. He teased the tension from her so that she was no longer mindful of the steps she took. She gave herself over to feeling the music until the lilting melodies were as much inside her as out.
She had not wanted it to end.
"Your cousins are watching you," Lady Gilbert said, tapping Sophie lightly on the knee with the tip of her fan. "Heavens! Do not look at them. They will take great delight in having rattled you. Odious toads. I cannot say that I like them above half."
Sophie's reverie was successfully banished by this reminder that there were at least two among the ambassador's guests who had an interest in her. "Is Lady Dunsmore here?" she asked.
"I do not know. I have never had any occasion to meet her. You must look around and determine her presence for yourself."
Sophie did. Her eyes alighted once on Eastlyn in conversation with the ambassador, but she did not permit her gaze to linger there. Neither did she allow her gaze to rest on Tremont or Harold standing resplendent among a cadre of friends. She recognized Helmsley, Prinny's most vocal detractor in Parliament, and Lord Pendrake, the sycophant who was so often in the company of Lord Harte that he looked vaguely uneasy to be part of a group that did not include his matching bookend. As her glance moved on, she saw Lords Barlough and Harte approaching the others. That this particular group had formed in plain sight of her could be no accident. Sophie suppressed a shiver as she acknowledged the truth of it and forced her attention in another direction. "Abigail is not here." She snapped her fan shut. "I hoped that I might see her. She cannot be at all well if she is yet at home."
Lady Gilbert sniffed. "You are too kind. You were ill-used by her."
Sophie made no reply. She could not make her aunt understand that she had not minded the place she had been given in the family after her father's death. Robert and Esme were more often a joy than a hardship. Abigail was inevitably demanding, and in no way able to be a true friend, but she was not by her very nature unkind. Had her need for the laudanum not held sway over her mood and shaded her good judgment, Abigail could have been a temperate voice in the household, perhaps standing up to her husband as Sophie had been wont to do in those early days of living under one roof.
Sophie glanced around again and this time saw that Eastlyn was gone from the ambassador's side. She thought he had left, but it was far worse than that. He was bowing slightly to Lady Powell, preparing to partner her in the next dance. Sophie considered several things she might do to the widow, all of them painful. When she saw Lord Edymon coming determinedly through the crowd toward her, Sophie flashed him her brightest smile.
She accepted his hand with an alacrity that surprised him. She had, after all, turned down his proposal of marriage three years earlier, and he had expected a gracious, but not effusive greeting. Evidently, he thought, the long separation had made her more kindly disposed toward him and softened her opinion of the country dances.
* * *
Lady Gilbert was long asleep by the time Eastlyn let himself into Sophie's residence. Still, he made a quiet ascent of the stairs. In deference to her aunt's sensibilities, Sophie had been reluctant to allow him to spend a single night in her bed since she had arrived in London. Even when Eastlyn informed her that Lady Gilbert had used extraordinary tortures to wrest the truth of their marriage from him, Sophie would not relent.
Until tonight.
He suspected it was the waltz that had calmed her fears. The waltz, and the undeniable need she had for him on the sofa in the ambassador's gallery. He almost wished he had taken her there, but some modicum of sense prevailed. The realization that any of the ambassador's four hundred guests might come upon them also gave him pause, but it was a narrow thing. Sophie had used her perfectly delicious mouth to make a convincing argument for reckless abandon.
Eastlyn reached the landing and cocked his head, listening for any signs of stirring. Candlelight slipped out from under Sophie's door, but he noticed that she had not left it open for him. Hefting the journal and ledgers he carried under his arm to better secure them, East started down the hall. Sophie's door opened while his hand was merely hovering over the knob.
"Quickly," Sophie said, pulling him into her bedchamber. "Else my aunt will hear you."
The chuckle that rose in East's throat was smothered by Sophie's urgent kiss. He nearly lost his grip on the books as she flung her arms around him and drew his head down. He managed to get to her bedside before he dropped them. One started to sli
p over the edge, but he caught it with his knee and kept it there until Sophie released him long enough for him to let it slide gently to the floor.
"What are those?" she asked. Her mouth was still against his. Her lips and her warm, sweet breath tickled him.
"Later." He did not want to explain now how so many sleepless nights strung end to end had afforded him the opportunity to refine his sneaksman skills. She would quite correctly point out that he might have been mistaken for the Gentleman Thief had he been caught. This moment, then, would be lost, and just now that was of more import to East than all the evidence he had gathered this past week.
Sophie tried to glimpse what East pushed to the bottom of the bed by standing on tiptoe and straining to see over his shoulder. Her tenuous balance made it easy for him to topple her. Her protest came to nothing as he followed her down.
Candlelight flickered over them, lending its glow to Sophie's upturned face and East's profile. She fell silent, her lips parting a fraction as he studied them. She had the sensation of his mouth on hers moments before he lowered his head and touched her in fact.
It was as if they had never parted in the gallery. Every one of Sophie's nerve endings was charged with anticipation. The first contact of East's mouth fired them all off in quick succession, and she felt her flesh tingle with the press of a thousand tiny darts. Tension immediately replaced that swift explosion, and Sophie arched under him, finding purchase in the quilt and bunching it between her fingers.
The thin fabric of her shift was rent by East's impatience. Sophie wondered only that it did not happen sooner. She moaned softly as his mouth worked its way down from the curve of her neck to the puckered tip of her breast. He took the nub between his lips and tugged gently, laving it with the damp edge of his tongue until her short gasp became a whimper.
She showed the same disregard for his clothes that he had shown for her shift. It was not so simple, though, to tear a frock coat or a finely made linen shirt, and Sophie had to be satisfied with the one button she left dangling from his embroidered waistcoat.
